I heard through the grapevine that one conclave group and possibly another on the west coast as /selling/ spots in their group before they are even accepted for this year's burn.

This is what I was most worried about with tickets getting so thin last year. I mean, I saw first hand 2 people buy their way into a conclave group and brag about it, but now it's just gotten completely obvious.

Furthermore, what does this mean for Theme Camps? If allowances are going to be made for Theme Camps, what is to stop them from selling spots to people with the money to burn? This favors the Burner with money, not necessarily the Burner that contributes the most.

I'm going on the assumption that theme camps are only going to be given enough tickets so their core members (the members that the theme camp could not operate without) get tickets, not the entire, or not even the majority of the camp. If they start shooting stacks of tickets to these camps that would just sucks some sweaty balls.

EDIT: But then agian, they did take all 10,000 tickets. At to assume that there are 10,000 core theme camp members/artist without tickets is ludacris. That's why I originally thought they would only take half the tickets, leaving thousands for an open sale that they said would happen. I know people that couldn't afford to register for the lotto because it was close to XMas and they thought, "hey, i'll just try the main sale", and now they're screwed. I just hope BMOrg doesn't play favorites and gives stacks of tickets to theme camps where only 15-20 people do the buld of the work then the remaining 40-50 people just contribute.. but not anymore then you or I could/would. I think only people with special skills that are irreplaceable should get tickets.

Last edited by remi on Fri Feb 17, 2012 2:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Part of the "magic" for me on the playa is the thought that, in years past, anyone who wanted this experience could have it. Now it's a mad scramble in the default world to get out there so we can be burney to each other for a week. It taints it somewhat for me, it really does. It'll still be awesome, but not quite as special. I'm remembering this during my ticket search, puts it in some perspective, and makes me take it as it comes instead of launch into a desperate search. If I had to step over someone in order to get there, it would ruin it. For me anyway. This possible news about conclaves and theme camps, well, I hope they can reconcile it all.

You can knock it down if you want. I'm not some whistle-blowing ass who is going to rat someone out. I will not name names even if Crimson Rose herself contacts me. Hence why I am not on my usual ePlaya account. I don't WANT anyone disseminating from my identity who these people might be.

I have my ticket. I am not going in conclave. I am only raising awareness that not everything is uncorruptable. It's important that BMORG understands the extent of how bad this situation has gotten.

vargaso wrote:Part of the "magic" for me on the playa is the thought that, in years past, anyone who wanted this experience could have it.

No, no, no, it was never that way and I know because I did not go. There is no utopian city with 500 swanky open bars, nightclubs, and an ongiong 24 hour metaparty that just anyone can drop by. You have to go through the ordeal to get to BRC. You have to save money, prepare, book tickets, spend more money, spend even more money, keep spending money, get a week off of work, spend more money on shit you forgot, mess with your packing list, spend more money, repack because one bag was 53 lbs, spend more money in Reno, sit in line for six hours.

I had a much easier time going to Australia. Had the trip been pleasure rather than business, the cost of the trip honestly would have been in the ball park Burning Man.

Even for the old-timers for whom the ordeal might become a simple task, the ordeal shifts. They can't just repeat the experience because the law of diminishing returns prevents such a thing. One has to volunteer and to make, and then to make more, and to lead, and then the logistics just get harder. It isn't about just camping in the desert, however hard that may have seemed at the time, it is now about running a small organization, leading your squadron, welding, carpentry, generators, large evaporation ponds, LNT plans, placement and bureaucracy. All an ever changing ordeal brought about by nature to prevent you from getting a free lunch - or at least not getting it twice.

Now the ordeal is just evolving for newcomers, as it apparently got too easy. I say this as a 2011 virgin and 2012 ticket winner, better lucky than good!

The parameters of what combination of resources or connections one needs are shifting around. It is ordeal-based inclusion, if you somehow set up an encampment of some sort in BRC, who cares how you got there anymore? By the time everyone has gotten through the ordeal, they no longer care about their social standing in the middle of some barren, hellish terrain. Welcome to the party, have a drink!

One thing I told myself that I should do that I forgot in this ticketing ordeal was not to believe. Go ahead and love the experience, dive in, do it, participate, guide my actions by some set of "principles", but don't believe in it. Never believe. Love it, cherish the moment, give back to others, have faith even, but don't believe.

I have no idea what I am talking about, but it sounds good right now. Don't forget the 0th principle: lighten the fuck up people, this is supposed to be fun.

Last edited by 5280MeV on Fri Feb 17, 2012 2:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.

5280MeV wrote:No, no, no, it was never that way and I know because I did not go.

I'm not so sure it wasn't like that ... at least at some point, to some degree. I get what you are saying about the growing complexity of attending as your participation ramps up, but it was pretty clear talking to my wife that in 1999 she could've gone to the burn on the Monday it began just by jumping in the car that was leaving for there. She was living in the Eastern Sierra at that time and Black Rock City is sorta "just up the road", so there is that.

It was particularly angsty moment at dinner that night because had she attended and became involved, with say a theme camp, she would potentially be being offered tickets to attend this year. Now, unless the single ticket in STEP issue isn't undone, we likely won't be able to attend at all. The picking and choosing of worthies was a tough call no one ever wanted to make. I'm sure. But, a real understanding of the implications to the event won't be understood for some time. People mention this all being an inflection point. Well, that may be the case, but like any current event, the implications are not fully understood in the moment. This stuff plays out over time and only time will tell.

But I like the Ordeal metaphor! That's basically how we were looking at the event already ... the suffering and hardship make the absurd magic of BRC that much more amazing. Oh well, next time!

5280MeV wrote:...One thing I told myself that I should do that I forgot in this ticketing ordeal was not to believe. Go ahead and love the experience, dive in, do it, participate, guide my actions by some set of "principles", but don't believe in it. Never believe. Love it, cherish the moment, give back to others, have faith even, but don't believe.

The underlined part of your quote may be the most logical and sensible thing that I have read online about BM since BMORG dropped the initial Lotto-ery bomb. That is a good mindset to have about BM and perhaps anything that involves the human heart. Now please excuse me while I go put your words on some greeting cards.

Anonymice wrote:You can knock it down if you want. I'm not some whistle-blowing ass who is going to rat someone out. I will not name names even if Crimson Rose herself contacts me. Hence why I am not on my usual ePlaya account. I don't WANT anyone disseminating from my identity who these people might be.

I have my ticket. I am not going in conclave. I am only raising awareness that not everything is uncorruptable. It's important that BMORG understands the extent of how bad this situation has gotten.

Take from this what you will.

I call bullshit.

If you are indeed concerned about the fire conclave as a whole, then you should be contacting Crimson/the fire conclave council on your own and naming names. The type of activity you are describing is exactly what those of us that work our asses off for conclave want to stop dead in its tracks.

You don't want this traced back to you, I can respect that. PM me and let me know; I will happily be the whistle blowing ass.

Anonymice wrote:It's important that BMORG understands the extent of how bad this situation has gotten.

Take from this what you will.

If you think it's important, do the right thing. Otherwise, what I will take from it is that you are full of shit.

M*A*S*H 4207th: An army of fun.I don't care what the borg says: feather-wearers will NOT be served in Rosie's Bar.Yes, I am the arbiter of doing it right or wrong. Guess which one you are!

vargaso wrote:Part of the "magic" for me on the playa is the thought that, in years past, anyone who wanted this experience could have it.

No, no, no, it was never that way and I know because I did not go. There is no utopian city with 500 swanky open bars, nightclubs, and an ongiong 24 hour metaparty that just anyone can drop by. You have to go through the ordeal to get to BRC. You have to save money, prepare, book tickets, spend more money, spend even more money, keep spending money, get a week off of work, spend more money on shit you forgot, mess with your packing list, spend more money, repack because one bag was 53 lbs, spend more money in Reno, sit in line for six hours.

I had a much easier time going to Australia. Had the trip been pleasure rather than business, the cost of the trip honestly would have been in the ball park Burning Man.

Even for the old-timers for whom the ordeal might become a simple task, the ordeal shifts. They can't just repeat the experience because the law of diminishing returns prevents such a thing. One has to volunteer and to make, and then to make more, and to lead, and then the logistics just get harder. It isn't about just camping in the desert, however hard that may have seemed at the time, it is now about running a small organization, leading your squadron, welding, carpentry, generators, large evaporation ponds, LNT plans, placement and bureaucracy. All an ever changing ordeal brought about by nature to prevent you from getting a free lunch - or at least not getting it twice.

Now the ordeal is just evolving for newcomers, as it apparently got too easy. I say this as a 2011 virgin and 2012 ticket winner, better lucky than good!

The parameters of what combination of resources or connections one needs are shifting around. It is ordeal-based inclusion, if you somehow set up an encampment of some sort in BRC, who cares how you got there anymore? By the time everyone has gotten through the ordeal, they no longer care about their social standing in the middle of some barren, hellish terrain. Welcome to the party, have a drink!

One thing I told myself that I should do that I forgot in this ticketing ordeal was not to believe. Go ahead and love the experience, dive in, do it, participate, guide my actions by some set of "principles", but don't believe in it. Never believe. Love it, cherish the moment, give back to others, have faith even, but don't believe.

I have no idea what I am talking about, but it sounds good right now. Don't forget the 0th principle: lighten the fuck up people, this is supposed to be fun.

Nah, it ain't that hard, I know plenty of people who decided to go literally the day before and bought a ticket at the gate. I should qualify that statement; it ain't that hard if you live in California, Nevada, Oregon or Utah. I GUARANTEE planning for a trip to Australia is not only more expensive, but requires more red tape and man-hours, unless you are building a project. The year we brought an art car, sure, building the sucker took a long time, but getting out there was just a matter of hooking up the trailer and getting it registered out there.

I've said it before, we like to glamorize how it's such an ORDEAL like we're the Donner Party of something, when it fact it's mostly just the "party" part.

Anonymice wrote:Even if there is a corrupt Shin selling tickets, does excluding his entire troupe seem right? The rest of his band would suffer and they aren't doing anything wrong.

If a shin specifically is the person doing this, they need to be blacklisted. Someone in their conclave will have to step forward and take over. It is early enough in the game that they could deal with the changes before the conclave submission deadline is up.

If more than one person in <mysterious group x> is complicit, then the answer to the above question is yes, excluding the troupe does seem right. That's what one might call a culture of corruption. Fuck those people.

M*A*S*H 4207th: An army of fun.I don't care what the borg says: feather-wearers will NOT be served in Rosie's Bar.Yes, I am the arbiter of doing it right or wrong. Guess which one you are!

You really should see this trick... he does it for the USO Show every year. But it's ok, they wash off the whistle when he's done.

SIDESHOW: Carnival of Smoke and Mirrors 2015 is looking for drop-in performers!! Do you have a freaky talent, skill or characteristic? Do you lay on a bed of nails, or swallow swords? PM me if interested.

vargaso wrote: I GUARANTEE planning for a trip to Australia is not only more expensive, but requires more red tape and man-hours, unless you are building a project.

I made it on about $1200 for the flight (I had $400 in vouchers from a bump I took 10 months prior, these were about to expire), and the hotel was about $100 AUD a night and on the two days I had off I probably spent around $75 on light signtseeing and food. You can get a decent dinner in Melbourne for ~$25 and lunch for $10. So for 8 days, the equivalent of Burning Man, I would have spent an additional $1600, for $3000 total.

I went pretty minimal to the burn, about $1700 when the dust settled, but I hear the figure $2000-3000 pretty often for east coasters.

Now I am an extreme example, I am used to being shipped to other countries on short notice for work, I know airline tricks, my passport is ready to go, I make international calls with skype credit, I already have the adapters for my laptop, I am used to seeking out wireless, I am comfortable hanging out in airports, and the feel of Australia was something between the US and Europe so it wasn't that big a culture jump, and they speak English so it is real easy. Additionally, I knew people there already, and could get tips on making plans. I just looked at the google maps of the city, found a decent hotel next to the train, called up the airline, and boom - ready to go.

BRC was much more difficult for me. I have never been camping in out west or in a desert (although I have done cold weather whitewater canoe camping), I had very little usable gear, and I only knew one burner that I was thankfully going with. I spent hours with gear lists, a "practice day" packing, looking for stuff in stores and online, driving an hour to the army base to get cheap gear, etc...

I am willing to bet that an EMT living and working in the Reno area would have a much easier time getting to BRC, and if this EMT had never been out of the country, Australia would have been a much bigger ordeal for them.

I guess the point is that YMMV. I definitely agree in general that sometimes people make too big a deal out of the ordeal - and the expanding population is evidence that it really isn't all that difficult. My ex-army friend liked to make a huge deal out of it, not because it was really all that hard for him, but he just had so much FUN dramatizing the trip, the way he does prepping for an imaginary zombie invasion.

While it may not be climbing K2, I do believe that BRC is enough of an ordeal for enough of the people that go that it triggers an immediate sense of camaraderie once they get there.

If my history is correct, all of these principles were not planned, they arose organically from whatever happened in the event. Although there was some sense of this "radical inclusion" in the cacophony society - "you may already be a member."

Maybe we should say "you may already be a burner"?

I dunno, but I feel like there is a need to figure out what this "First Principle" actually means to people, since you can't fit every vacationer in America and abroad on the playa.

Agreed, it's different for everyone, but if you enjoy camping, it's not that big a deal, generally. I'm WAY more exhausted after a camping trip with my 3 kids than I am after Burning Man, for instance.

Anonymice wrote:You can knock it down if you want. I'm not some whistle-blowing ass who is going to rat someone out. I will not name names even if Crimson Rose herself contacts me. Hence why I am not on my usual ePlaya account. I don't WANT anyone disseminating from my identity who these people might be.

I have my ticket. I am not going in conclave. I am only raising awareness that not everything is uncorruptable. It's important that BMORG understands the extent of how bad this situation has gotten.

Take from this what you will.

There are more conclaves than places in the Great Circle, they ALL must audition, even the big established groups who are quite good. NO conclave is assured a place before the audition videos and applications are submitted. Therefore, selling conclave spots is impossible, if they are, well those paying are stupid, or those selling are scam artists. Or someone who believes this crap is a gullible fool.